Posts by Linda T. Elkins-Tanton

When our Solar System was just an infant, thousands of small early planets formed in just a few million years (Scherstén et al. 2006). Some grew to hundreds of kilometers in diameter as they swept up pebbles, dust, and gas within the swirling solar nebula. Heat from the decay of short-lived radioactive isotope 26Al was trapped and, in some cases, melted the planetesimal interiors. The molten interiors quickly differentiated: denser material settled to their centers, leaving lighter silicates to cool into thick mantles that surrounded metal cores (e.g. Weiss and Elkins-Tanton 2013).